World Breaking News

China has detained five local officials after they jammed cotton gauze into sensors used to monitor pollution in an attempt to improve air quality readings, media reported. The environmental officials had also tampered with computers to alter the results of pollution monitoring in the northern city of Xi’an, reports said. China has vowed to wage a “war on pollution” and Beijing has set targets for local governments to cut levels of smog. Authorities are also trying to collate emissions data to help them punish high-polluting businesses, but ensuring information is reliable has proved a challenge. A member of staff from the Environmental Protection Bureau in Xi’an’s Chang’an district confirmed to The Telegraph that police had detained a group of officials in an investigation into falsified air quality data. The Global Times newspaper citied local reports saying: “Officials in charge of environmental protection blocked the samplers to make the data ‘look better’ and avoid penalties for high pollution in their area of responsibility.” Readings of PM2.5 – toxic particles small enough to deeply penetrate the lungs – can decrease by 30-50 per cent if cotton is used to cover air-monitoring equipment, an expert cited by The Beijing News said. Chinese environmental campaigner Ma Jun said: “It is a very serious incident. Data fraud severely impacts the public’s right to know, and air quality data is an important measuring index used by environmental protection bureaus to make decisions. “False data will mislead them,” the director of the Beijing-based Institute of Public and…more detail

By Jake Spring | BEIJING BEIJING Residents of China's capital awoke on Saturday to dense, choking smog after many set off a barrage of fireworks overnight to ring in the Lunar New Year, despite limits and public admonitions against such displays in the congested city. The Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau said harmful particulate matter in the air had hit the second-highest level in five years by Saturday morning, the state-owned China News Service reported. Beijing launched a "war against pollution" in 2014 as part of a central government promise to reverse damage done by decades of breakneck growth and…... [read more]

By Joseph Campbell BEIJING, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Tougher law enforcement has reduced the number of environmental offenders in Beijing in recent years, but more companies need to adapt to the emissions standards in China's capital, its environmental inspection squad says. Beijing has been on the frontlines of a "war against pollution" declared by Premier Li Keqiang in 2014, as part of a central government promise to reverse damage done by decades of growth, and strengthen powers to shut down and punish polluters. With more than 500 environmental inspectors working to identify offenders, thousands of companies have been investigated and…... [read more]

Residents of a Chinese city had a shock this week when they woke up to see the sky had turned pink. The city of Dexing, in south-east China's Jiangxi Province, had been troubled by air pollution as the odd colour appeared in the sky on January 6, reported People's Daily Online. Local authorities claimed the unusual glow was a result of light travelling through thickening clouds and that it was a 'natural phenomenon'. Pictures, said to be taken from a school in Dexing, showed that the city's sky had turned pink Local residents panicked after they saw the odd colour…... [read more]

QIAN'AN, China (AP) — An overloaded coal truck rumbles down from the steel factory and hits a bump, sending chunks of its black cargo skittering and click-clicking along the asphalt. Waiting by the roadside, a farmer swaddled in thick, cotton-padded winter clothing scrambles into onrushing traffic to pick up the pieces. Four hours a day, four days a week, the villager, whose surname is Shen, comes to a spot near her home where a never-ending procession of coal trucks runs into uneven pavement. A thousand little bumps in the road keep Shen and her husband from freezing in winter. "If…... [read more]

Beijing was on the second-highest orange smog alert today Over the new year holiday, hundreds of flights were cancelled and highways closed across northern China as average concentrations of small breathable particles known as PM2.5 soared above 500 micrograms per cubic metre in Beijing and surrounding regions. Pollution alerts are common in northern China, especially during bitterly cold winters when energy demand, much of it met by coal, soars. But the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau told state media that PM2.5 concentrations dropped 9.9 percent on the year to an average of 73 micrograms per cubic metre in the Chinese…... [read more]

Horrifying footage shows Beijing completely shrouded in smog in just 20 minutes. The time lapse footage taken on January 2 by Chas Pope, an expat in Beijing shows how in a short amount of time the city is left engulfed by the polluted air. Thick smog returned to Beijing following a brief respite and has since hit hazardous levels. Here comes the smog: The video was taken from a high-rise building in central Beijing Time lapse footage taken from an office block in Beijing's CBD shows the sheer scale of the smog. It also shows how quickly the city's air…... [read more]

A time-lapse video has demonstrated the extent of Beijing’s air pollution problem by capturing the point at which a thick layer of dark smog engulfed the city, rendering it virtually unrecognisable within the space of 20 minutes. Chas Pope, who created the video, wrote on YouTube: “I made this earlier today [2 January] – a bank of AQ1400+ smog arriving in Beijing within the space of 20 minutes.” His 12-second time-lapse video, dubbed “Beijing Airpocalypse,” appears to have been recorded from the window of one of the city’s skyscrapers and shows a thick brown cloud of smog sweeping into the…... [read more]

BEIJING, Jan 3 (Reuters) - The Chinese capital was on the second-highest orange smog alert in the depth of winter on Tuesday but city officials said the air quality was improving overall, citing data for last year. Hundreds of flights were cancelled and highways closed across northern China over the new year holiday as average concentrations of small breathable particles known as PM2.5 soared above 500 micrograms per cubic metre in Beijing and surrounding regions. Pollution alerts are common in northern China, especially during bitterly cold winters when energy demand, much of it met by coal, soars. But the Beijing…... [read more]

Heavy smog blanketing northern and central China could not deter the spirits of a number of locals who took to the streets to dance. Dozens of flights and highways were closed on Monday but people in Fuyang, in the Anhui province, braved the shocking pollution, donning masks to perform their best Viennese Waltz. The Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau extended an 'orange alert' for heavy air pollution for three more days. Beijing's smog had initially been forecast to lift by Monday. Despite heavy smog blanketing northern and central China on Monday people in Fuyang, in the Anhui province took to…... [read more]

BEIJING, Jan 3 (Reuters) - The Chinese capital was on the second-highest orange smog alert in the depth of winter on Tuesday as city officials said the air quality was improving overall, citing data for the whole of last year. Over the new year holiday, hundreds of flights were cancelled and highways closed across northern China as average concentrations of small breathable particles known as PM2.5 soared above 500 micrograms per cubic metre in Beijing and surrounding regions. Pollution alerts are common in northern China, especially during bitterly cold winters when energy demand, much of it met by coal, soars.…... [read more]